This invention relates generally to collecting apparatus, and more particularly concerns apparatus for collecting eggs from an array of poultry cages.
Modern poultry operations make extensive use of carefully designed equipment to care for large poultry flocks. For example, thousands of laying hens can be accommodated in specially designed cages where they are provided with food, water, light, air and heat by automatic apparatus. (Typical flocks can contain 30,000 to 85,000 hens.) This apparatus can be controlled or cycled so as to encourage the hens to maximize egg production. In such installations, automatic egg collecting apparatus can serve to further reduce the effort and labor costs of the poultry husbandman. In general, mechanical egg collecting devices are designed to collect the eggs from each poultry cage and to transport those eggs to a centralized packaging or processing station.
Some such egg collecting devices have, in the past, been prone to clogging and befoulment by feathers, spilled feed, or waste material from the hens. Other devices have provided only relatively rough handling to the eggs. Under either set of circumstances, egg breakage can occur, resulting in loss of the broken eggs, possible further befoulment of the collecting apparatus and, in any event, reduction of profit to the poultry husbandman.
It is accordingly the general object of the present invention to provide an egg collecting apparatus which will overcome these difficulties, and which can be offered at a commercially attractive price.
More specifically, it is an object of the present invention which will collect and transport eggs safely and efficiently from laying cages to a centralized collecting and processing station.
Another object is to provide such apparatus which will provide relatively long, trouble-free service life and which can be repaired relatively easily and with minimal expense.